I’ve gotten a little tired of all the stories about Chinese and nationalism around that I spent most of last weekend trying to avoid most foreign news coverage about it. But I was dragged back in an interesting way when I learned to a recent podcast on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) Radio’s Ideas program. Two of the New Yorker Magazine’s Canadian writers, Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik were debating what Canada was — a nation or a notion?
It was Gladwell’s argument that Canada was a nation that pulled me back in. He was making the “small as beautiful” debate. Gladwell’s method for arguing this was to use the experience of overseas Chinese businesspeople as in …
With the swarm of anti-France/boycott-Carrefour messages still plaguing the wireless networks, IM chats and BBSes, it was a pleasant surprise to run across Jason’s post at Over and Out sharing a QQ forward he received that - shockingly - doesn’t rise up and call to arms the seething masses of ultra-nationalists.
For this laowai, I couldn’t be happier to see that there are young Chinese standing firm and illustrating that China HAS actually changed - and that the Red Guard-like mentality that has coursed through the country as if it were some common-sense killing virus is not necessarily representative of the population - but rather just more vocal.
Recall the old expression: teachers are to act in loco parentis. This means, if my high school Latin still serves me, that during school hours the teachers are responsible for assuming the role of parents in the lives of their students. Yet as anyone knows, this doesn’t really work. As teenagers, the last things we needed were extra parents. What we needed, and wanted, were independent adult figures to help us guide our way through those trying years and prepare us for adulthood. Oh, and teach us a practical thing or two while they were at it.
In Chinese high schools, various factors add a few wrinkles to the common theme. For Senior Grade 3 students, their lives revolve around passing …
Ah, springtime in Jiangnan: fields awash in patches of yellow canola blooms…plum and cherry petals whipping around the picnickers beneath them…lovers meeting secretly before the wife gets home…
Yes, springtime is much more beautiful when it’s shared with an er nai. And why not? You’ve got the money to keep one–rent an apartment, buy expensive gifts, and give her a handsome monthly allowance so she need not work. Besides, you don’t love your wife in that way: you married her because it was time to get married, she was attractive enough, and even though you aren’t, she chose you for your financial soundness. Your marriage was a transaction, but this is love! (well, lust, at least, but you need that just …
Hot off the extremely reliable mobile SMS chain comes news that Carrefour and the French government have banned together to concoct a special May Holiday sale to lure Chinese customers away from their boycott.
And not just that, French TV is hoping to catch it all for the 6-o’clock news, presumably to put the French people’s minds at rest, and hearts at ease, that their largest shopping chain in China isn’t going unattended.
法国政府准备拿出两千万美金，家乐福自己再拿出五百万美金，用于五一降价促销，听说家乐福高层很狂妄，让中国人在五一降价中挤破家。
The French government has prepared 20 mil and Carrefour has prepared 5 mil to use for a May Holiday sale. The owner of Carrefour is very arrogant, believing Chinese people during May Holiday will buy excessively at Carrefour.
法国电视台也在积极做准备，拍摄中国人到家乐福疯狂购物的景象，让中国人自打自的嘴。如果你是爱国的中国人，把此信息传给你的亲戚朋友，不要到家乐福购物，不要为了丁点的小便宜，而丢了尊严，丢了民族志气，让外国人笑话。再不能让外国人把我们看作东亚病夫了。
French television is also actively making preparations …
The lead-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics has spun so totally out of whack that I believe they need to add a new sport to the Games - Puerile Ping Pong.
The event pits countries from across the globe against each other in a balls-out relay race to see who can reach absolute absurdity first, all the while volleying hypocritically mundane arguments back and forth. Athletes will be judged on their ability to leap without looking, speak without thinking and masterfully perform the ultimate Puerile Ping Pong move - the Downward Spiral of Stupidity.
Though traditionally China has dominated the semi-pro leagues in …
Well, it’s been a while since our Photo of the Week section was added to - but I thought I’d break the silence with this interesting photo by Bruno Porto.
Every week(ish) we’ll feature an interesting, funny, beautiful or otherwise noteworthy photo here. If you have a photo you think might make a good Photo of the Week, throw it in the pool at the Lost Laowai flickr Group and if you’ve got a great caption for it, send that to us as well.
In what can only be assumed to be fear over increased problems related to the Olympic games, China has cut off multiple entry travel visas, and limited them to 30 days.
As Journey to Nowhere reports from the SCMP (which stoically continues to charge for online content):
Beijing has stopped issuing multiple-entry visas, risking major inconvenience to foreigners who travel to the mainland regularly, especially on business. Hong Kong travel agents say the ban will stay in place until after the Olympic Games.
Travelers are now restricted to single- or double-entry visas valid for 30 days. Multiple-entry visas that have not expired are still valid.
Andrew Work, executive director of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the ban …
If you ever been around Shanghai’s People’s Square and Nanjing West Road, you’ve seen them — the shoe shine guys. They’ve got their little foot bench that doubles as a carryall for their oily rags and 3-kuai tube of shoe polish.
If you work in that area of Shanghai these guys will pester you. Two or three times a day when I leave the office, I hear “Hey Laowai, hey shoe shine, shoe shine 10 yuan very good hey!” I usually keep right on walking even if my shoes are dirty. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the service these guys are trying to offer, it’s the way they go about getting my business. They try to catch you and run …
Hot off the extremely reliable mobile SMS chain comes news that Carrefour and the French government have banned together to concoct a special May Holiday sale to lure Chinese customers away from their boycott.
In what can only be assumed to be fear over increased problems related to the Olympic games, China has cut off multiple entry travel visas, and limited them to 30 days.
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